


The Land of Nod

by DeanRH



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Coda, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2020-08-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:00:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26173114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeanRH/pseuds/DeanRH
Summary: Dean finds out about some deals that have been made without his knowledge.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 8
Kudos: 31





	The Land of Nod

**Author's Note:**

> I am on hiatus from writing about these guys for the most part but had to set this down after seeing the trailer.

Dean couldn't sleep. 

He tossed and turned to no avail.

Finally, he gave up, and got up, padding into the kitchen for a late-night snack.

Castiel was standing there.

"Whoa!" said Dean. "Hey, Cas. You scared the crap outta me, warn a guy next time."

Dean opened the fridge to get some bologna for his sandwich. He put it together on a plate and then looked up at Cas again.

"Cat got your tongue or somethin'?" asked Dean. "Stop starin' at me. How many times I gotta tell you, it's creepy."

Dean walked out into the other room and set the plate on the table. He decanted some whisky into a glass.

"Perfect midnight snack," said Dean. "You want some?"

This time Dean looked - really _looked -_ at Castiel, and saw there were tears shining in his eyes.

"Whoa, hey buddy," he said. "Sorry if I came off rude there, I can't sleep. What's wrong? Some witch whammy you?"

He rounded the table and stood in front of Castiel.

"I couldn't keep it from you anymore," Castiel said. "Dean, you saved the whole world. But I'm selfish, and I did it to save Jack."

"You did what to save Jack?" asked Dean.

Castiel sighed. Tears, real tears, slipped down his cheeks. Dean had never seen him cry before.

"Dude, you're scaring me," Dean said on a light laugh. 

"What can I say?" Castiel said, voice tight and sad. "I learned about family from you."

"What the hell's goin' on, Cas?" Dean said. "What did you do?"

"Dean, there's something you need to know -"

"Hello, Castiel."

Dean turned, tears in his eyes, to see a woman standing behind him.

"And just who the hell are you?" he demanded.

"I'm the Shadow," said the woman. "And I'm here to take Castiel home."

"Home? Lady, he _is_ home," Dean snarled. "You ain't takin' him anywhere."

She snorted a laugh.

"You call this a home?" she asked. "For Castiel? You kicked him out, you treated him like crap. Believe me, he's going to a better place."

"Nobody's going anywhere!" barked Dean. "I want some answers."

"I traded my soul for Jack's in the Empty."

Dean swung around and stared at Castiel again.

"You did what."

"I'm sorry, Dean," said Castiel, defeated. "I was desperate, and I didn't know what else to do."

Dean shook his head and sighed.

"What is it you wanted to tell me?"

"I - " he began. He gave a beseeching look to the Shadow. "Could we have some privacy, please?"

"No skin off my back," she shrugged, and vanished.

Castiel turned his attention back to Dean.

"I've neglected saying this for years," he said. "But now it's my last chance. So. Dean Winchester, I'm in love with you."

Dean stared at him.

His mouth dropped open.

Words tried and failed to come to him.

He blinked.

"I've fought against it. Did everything I could to see you as a brother, a fellow warrior, a comrade-in-arms. But Dean, you were always, _always_ so much more," said Castiel. 

He stepped forward.

"And I love you. I love you. I love you," he chanted softly, until he finally captured his lips in a soft kiss. "Now that I've said it once, I can't stop saying it."

Then he backed away, a respectful distance, that _personal space_ that Dean now cursed.

"Cas, I -"

"You don't have to return it," said Castiel. "It was enough to say it. I just wanted you to know."

"And you're a goddamned idiot," said Dean, reaching forward and grabbing him by the lapels of his trenchcoat, yanking him forward.

He treated Castiel to a searing kiss, then let go.

"Uh," said Dean. "Me too."

The light that dawned on Castiel's face was like the sunrise. The smile that spread across his features might've reminded Dean of the days with the Leviathan if it hadn't been so soft.

"And that's my cue," said the Shadow, suddenly reappearing again at Castiel's side. "Time to go, champ."

"What?" Dean said, emotions pingponging inside him like the ball in a pinball machine. "Wait, what do you mean?"

"Didn't Castiel tell you?" asked the Shadow. "I told him that if he ever let himself be _truly happy_ , that's when I'd come for him."

Dean gaped at her.

Castiel was staring at him as if to commit every line of his face, every crow's foot and wrinkle, to memory.

Dean was hit with the sudden realization that this may be his only chance to actually say the words to Castiel. So it was time to nut up.

"Castiel," he said, and Cas looked at him, startled blue eyes and all, because the use of his full name _meant_ something.

"Dean - " said Castiel.

And they vanished, leaving Dean alone in the bunker.

"-I'm in love with you, too," said Dean aloud, to the emptiness.

He stood there for a moment, in the silence, and then dropped his face into his hands.

And he sobbed, without caring that anyone heard him, for the first time in years.

***

Sam found him like that, around ten minutes later.

"What happened?" Sam asked. 

Dean looked up at his brother, eyes red.

"Cas is gone," he said.

And briefly explained what had happened.

Now Sam was looking shifty.

Dean's eyes narrowed.

"What now?" he asked. "More bad news?"

"I, uh," said Sam. "I found out - you know how I have that connection to God?"

"Yeah."

"Well. Rowena says, if I die, he dies too."

Dean dropped his hands from his face and stared at his brother coldly.

"No," he said. "No way. I ain't losin' a brother too. Not on the same damn day."

"You've been saving my life since I was a kid, Dean," said Sam, as the tears came to him too. "It's the only thing I've ever known that was real. Now, let me be the one to save you."

Dean could barely hear his brother over the sound of his heart breaking.

"But if Rowena told you -"

"Automatically going to Hell. Yeah. That's what you get for killing God."

"Sam, this is a stupid move -"

"It's the only move we got. Let me do this, Dean."

"He's right."

Dean turned to see Billie standing behind them.

"Doesn't anybody knock anymore?" he demanded. 

"Your brother's sacrifice will mean sealing away the supernatural for good," said Billie. "The ultimate death, the ultimate price. Don't worry about him too much, though. He and Rowena will rule Hell together."

"Yeah? And what's gonna happen to Heaven?"

"Who can say?" said Billie. "But at least this is one sacrifice that will mean that no more supernatural beings will come to exist."

"Yeah?" asked Dean, tears flowing freely now. "And what, exactly, am I meant to do?"

"Keep hunting," said Billie. "That's your role to play in all of this, Dean. Like Cain and Abel, you must sacrifice your brother. There will still be plenty of monsters to kill, enough to at least last your lifetime. But once they're gone, they're gone. Nothing new. Total extinction."

Billie turned to Sam.

"Are you ready?"

Sam nodded.

"But I don't want to do this alone," said Dean, finally admitting his private thoughts aloud. "Cas was taken from me. You can't take Sam too."

And he knew that he sounded every bit the little boy he was never allowed to be.

Billie smiled softly.

"Rejoice," she said, "in that your sacrifice will be noted, and remembered. You have the gift of immortality now, Dean."

"What?" Dean demanded. "I didn't ask for that."

"No," Billie agreed. "But it is the lot that falls to the man who is Cain: the eternal wanderer."

"But I don't - " Dean was becoming more and more perplexed. "I don't have the mark of Cain anymore."

"The mark of Cain was evil," said Billie. "You are, despite what you think, not evil, Dean. You are the light. Besides. Someone has to be out there, hunting monsters."

Dean's whole world was collapsing around him. He had nothing more to say.

"This was what we always wanted," said Sam. "What we've been fighting for."

"Not without you, though," said Dean, and it was just too much, too fast, too many losses he could not comprehend.

"I love you, Dean," said Sam, grabbing him in a firm bear hug.

Dean shut his eyes against the world, against all the things he could not change, and as the tears rolled down his cheeks, he finally said it:

"I love you, too, Sammy."

And between that moment and the next, Dean was alone.

The wailing and gnashing of teeth that followed were heard by the bunker's walls, and there they would stay until the world finally burned out beneath the sun.

***

There was a desert, and a long road.

And a long, black car.

A motorcycle was traveling in the opposite direction, toward the car.

The car stopped.

The motorcycle stopped.

Dean stepped out of the car, and walked up to the person who stepped off the motorcycle.

They traded keys.

The stranger got inside the Impala, started her up, and drove away.

Dean sat on the motorcycle and did the same.

He'd kept her a long time, and he'd tried -

but the Impala just had too many memories,

of his father and mother,

of Bobby and Ellen and Jo,

of friends and comrades lost,

of an angel he never did all those things he'd wanted to, with the trenchcoat spread out on the backseat on a hot summer's night,

and of his baby brother, his once-eternal companion, now missing like he was missing a limb.

So he talked another hunter into a trade.

Dean drove off, along that endless highway, knowing that he would be the last hunter still alive within a few years, wandering the roads, becoming a legend and perhaps a monster himself.

But that was the fate that befell Cain, after all -

brother, lover, wanderer, monster

in the future, around campfires, in whispers at slumber parties, in folklore courses, in horror films,

the name _Dean Winchester_ would come to mean all of those things, too.


End file.
